IT was while visiting my old choir friends last month, I remembered this incident many years ago: “Sing the solo Bob!” the then conductor had asked me. “No,” I whispered, “I just want to sit in the choir pew I sat in many decades ago, and thank the God of my dreams!” “God of your dreams?”
“Yes,” I whisper and see a little boy small and insecure, shy and sensitive, sitting at the back of the choir. “Does he sing?” I heard the choir conductor ask the big booming bass, who sat next to me and the whole choir laughed as I went red in the face.
And as the rehearsals started and the music flowed, as the conductor waved his hands and melody rose in the voices around me, I dreamed: I dreamt of success, of a business that would not have the wolf knocking at the door. Of cars and a home that would belong to me and not to landlords who we changed faster than I changed my socks. And the God of my dreams smiled at me, in that last row in the choir.
“Lord I want to a writer!” And the Lord above nodded, as choral voices raised themselves around, I felt angels sitting next to the Lord above, watching Him smile gently and nod His head at a little boy with his fancy dreams. And in that last row in the choir I dreamt and He above listened.
“No solo!” I say as I look at the conductor. “What I want is to sit in that same row behind. What I’d like to do is to look up and smile at Him who heard me those days so long ago and gave me much and more. “Thank you Lord!” I whisper. “Did you feel my presence Bob?” He whispers.
“Everyday Lord, every moment as you helped those dreams come true.” The business grew and one day I looked down at four cars, a four- bedroom house and one at a hill station. Then one day I looked down at those same four cars and no money in my pocket for petrol. “Write Bob!” said His voice from above. “But Lord I have creditors to pay off and dealers wanting their payment!”
“Write Bob, write! The rest is my problem!” And I wrote, and the God of my dreams took charge of the column, brought in newspapers abroad and in the country as He changed me from a businessman to writer.
“Lord!” I prayed as I sat in that pew in the last row, “You took a stammering Moses and made him a towering leader, you take weak men and make them strong, thank you for taking a shy, sickly, insecure me and lifting me up!” I thanked the God of my dreams, as the choir sang around me that Sunday in the church of my childhood..!
